REPORT 



L o p I ]^ a 

C H O O L, 



OOL-SHOPS, 



BY A CO.M.AnTTEE APrOIXTED BY TIIK 



^ocicil ^nfucf Association, 



AND 1;1:A1) at IHEIli ANNUAL >IEETING 



BOSTO^s^ MASS., 



JAXTARY lO, 1877. 



B O 8 T N : 
^OF Rockwell & Ciiukciiill, 39 Akcii St. 



T?' 





THi: TFOSKSUOP ABTII *TIl.E dCELOOT,. 



Editor of the TrateZZer,— Froebel, Rankle and 
Iiug:gles indicate the different parts of a com- 
I'lete system of industrial education. The first 
zives the child the mastery of the senses, thesec- 
ond the mastery of the tools, and the third the 
mastery of the rij^ht trade, which is the consum- 
mation of the whole. And this division, in fact, 
is applicable to the whole work of education. 

Jbtage firjjL. Putt'ng the child into the posses- 
sion of his senses, aesthetic faculties, reason and 
moral powers, by natural opportunities and the 
least interferences. 

Stage second. Patting the boy or girl into the 
possession of the tools, which are, for the senses 
and their technical employment, the hammer, 
chisel, saw, file, &c.; for the sesthetic faculties, 
drawing, the theory of colors; for the reason, 
the theoretical studies or pure sciences, and 
finally, for the moral faculties, correct moral no 
tions or ideas. 

Stage third. Putting the' youth into the pos- 
session of the concrete whole, which is for the 
senses and their technical employment, a full 
and complete trade; for the sesthetic faculties 
and their practical application, architectural and 
industrial design and technical ornamentation; 
for the intellect, the applied sciences; and for the 
moral faculties, practical ethics, domestic and 
public economy, politics, &c. 

And thus the work of the cultivator of men 
must be directed, first to the senses, next to the 
tools, and then to the concrete work of life, the 
most important and the end of all. 

President Runkle, of the Institute of Tech- 
nology, was therefore most grieviously in error 
when he recently stated before a special commit- 
tee of the School Board, "That to teach a lad the 
skilful use of mechanical tools, is to do for him 
about all that he himself could have asked for.'* 
The lad most assuredly asks for more; he wants a 
trade by which he can make an honest living, 
and such as Ruggles proposes and practical men 
declare feasible. A boy's ability in the use of a 
half-dozen of tools does not'alter the fact that 
manufacturers will not be troubled with teaching 
him the particulars of twenty different operations 
in the make up of an article, which is cheapest 
produced by so many individuals, though for the 
State it would be best the workmen were skilled 
mechanics and commanded the highest wages. 
The community, therefore, cannot share in Pres- 
ident Runkle's assurance, "We now have no fear 
that such as desire to accomplish themselves in 
the arts will not follow their natural bent," For, 
most assuredly, a boy that can use a half a dozen 
of tools, bat is ignorant of a special trade, is ex- 
posed to want and to the danger of having to ac- 
cept for his calling whatever chances, be he .fit 
for it or not. / '' ' 



It men who advocate the Russian system meal 
that a child shall not go to school a year, an hour 
or a day without using a tool, but that he shall 
not leave the school and the workshop until he is 
a complete workman and can produce something 
that will support him handsomely, this ia all 
right; but if the public workshop will set chil- 
dren merely to hammer or file and know nothing 
ift particular but to sell lozenges, God save us 
from such an industrial education, which is sure 
Dot to make one tramp less. Or must even 
stern industry, under the hands of our teach- 
ers, evaporate into hollow aeneraliiies in 
order to be considered educational and of a 
piece with the rest of our would-be polite 
culture? Does the reality of a thing or action 
render it less educational? It is time we free 
ourselves from this shallow pedantry, that only 
wordE — or, as Dr. Johnson calls it, wind — are 
educational. And let the friends of industrial 
labor remember that the blows of the hammer 
are as windy as the blows of the tongue when 
the performance is no more marketable than 
words. Bread, is the cry of the million, and 
Low shall we rid ourselves of pauperism, crime, 
and crushing taxation ? If we are small-minded 
for this, so God has made us, and the professors 
cannot make us otherwise. 

But has not the teaching of trades great diffi- 
culties ? 

We answer, none which the American people 
cannot overcome, when crime and pauperism , 
threaten to eat us up, and the saving of the mul- 
titude demands it. 

Let us be just to the genius and philanthropy 
of S. P. Ruggles. There have existed industrial 
schools after a fashion, or say rather shoe-black 
brigades, technical institutions and even excel- 
lent schools for particular trades, but they are 
not the thing to regenerate humanity, and save 
the masses, and with them the nation. It is the 
belief that wherever there is a schoolhouse 
there shall be a workshop, too, so that no one 
need suffer want or be tempted by misery to 
crime. This belief was too big for our hearts, 
and only the faith, the industrial genius and the 
practical sense and philanthropy of S. P. 
Ruggles have kindled it in many. He stands in 
front and foremost in the cause of universal In- 
dustiial Education y as once Horace Muon did in 
behalf of our common school system, which was 
the first step in the right direction; and' to S. P. 
Ruggles the honor is due for the great good Mas- 
sachusetts is about to achieve for humanity 
through the union of the school and the work- _ 
shop. 



** 




REPORT 



ON A 



deyelopi:kg 

SCHOOL, 



AND 



SCHOOL-SHOPS 



BY A COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE 



l^iiuritau Social ^tinui: l^ssatiaiiau, 






AND READ AT THEIR ANNUAL MEETING 



IN BOSTOI^, MASS., 



JAUrUARY lO, ISTT. 



♦ ♦♦ 



BOSTON: 
Press of Rockwell & Chuechill, 39 Arch St. 






Dear Sir : — We send you the following copy of a report of a committee 
appointed by the American Social Science Association, which was read at 
their annual meeting held Jan. 10, 1877, at the Lowell Institute Hall, Boston. 

It will be seen that they strongly recommend that a 

DEVELOPING SCHOOL, 

AND 

SCHOOL-SHOPS 

should be established by the city or State, or an endowed corporation, — taking 
the ground that all boys, after leaving our public or private schools, are as 
much entitled to a free education of the hand as they have been to the educa- 
tion of the head given them at the public schools, ^— where they may be taught 
that trade, art or calling for which they are best fitted by nature, as ascer- 
tained by the Developing School. 



J^ 







TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



A committee appointed by the American Social Science 
Association, consisting of S. P. Ruggles (Chairman), 
Wendell Phillips, Elizur Wright, Edward E. Hale and .John 
Newell (Secretary), to report on a plan for Developing 
Schools, and School-Shops, present the following : — 

DEVELOPING SCHOOL, 

AND 

SCHOOL-SHOPS. 

There is an order of education, which may be called 
special, by which every individual in a community in har- 
mony with his choice shall not only be cultivated into an 
able man, but shall, in addition, have a practical training in 
that peculiar knowledge and specific skill by which he be- 
comes habitually a machinist, mason, carpenter, builder, 
architect, engineer, ship-builder, naval architect, etc. Each 
of these duties must be learned by some person, over and 
above and in addition to all that he knows in common with 
others ; and it is plain that the work of each citizen will have 
value in exact proportion to his skill. In other words, the 
value of a nation's work will vary with the excellence of its 
national system of technical education. 

The question comes home to every one of us. How 
shall we train the children and youth, who are to succeed us 
in this W(»rld, changed by science and invention, for the wide 
field of responsibility that lies before them ? The conditions 



of society have undergone such a radical change during the 
last forty or fifty years that the laborer must now receive a 
different practical education from what was required two 
generations ago. Apprenticeship having departed, never 
to return in its ancient form, something else must take its 
place, and give to our artisans practical instruction. Every 
youth should have placed within his reach such technical 
instruction as will enable him to become the master of his 
trade, art or occupation. By the old apprentice system, 
the boy was bound to the master some seven years, and 
received his instruction more by his own observation than 
by any direct teaching. We recommend the plan suggested 
by Mr. S. P. Ruggles, and so universally endorsed by the 
press, in contradistinction to the former system of our 
fathers, — that the youth, whenever he has completed his 
general education in any of our public or private schools, 
may enter what may be called a 

Developing School, 

so established and arranged as to give all the pupils a 
good general idea of all the different trades, arts or callings, 
in order that it may be ascertained by themselves or the 
superintendent for Avhat kind of business they have the 
greatest natural genius. Imagine, if you please, one very 
large room, with a steam-engine and boiler in the middle of 
it, so that all pupils that have any taste for the management 
of steam, or steam-engines, could examine every point, and 
readily understand all about it. Then we would have a car- 
penter's bench, with a variety of tools, to show how that 
work was done ; then perhaps turning-lathes, to show how 
the wood-turning business was performed ; then, with the aid 
of blackboards and carving-tools, it might be seen how 
drawing and carving is done, by those that have any inclina- 
tion for that business. We should also have planing- 
machines, lathes, upright drills, jig-saws, etc., to represent 
the machinist business. Foundry w^ork should be shown by 



having the usual fixtures for sand, and two and three part 
flasks for moulding, etc. ; the casting could be done m soft 
metals, as lead, zinc or tin, which could be reused, as the 
whole art in foundry work consists iu the different manner of 
moulding ; and nlmost all other trades or methods of doing 
work could be pretty Avell represented in the same room. 

Thr School-Shop. 

As soon as it should be ascertained what kind of business 
the pupil is best fitted for by nature, he would be recom- 
mended to the School-Shop where that trade should be 
taught, and be more thoroughly instructed in two years, and 
become a better mechanic, than in six or seven years under 
the old system of learning a trade. 

School-Shops vs. Workshops. 

We w^ould here like to show the difference between 
mechanical shops of all kinds that should be established to 
teach a trade, art, or calling, and the shops already estab- 
lished for doing work of that particular kind for profit. 
For example, we will speak of the machine-shop, which, 
as now arranged, is fitted up with the general tools and 
fixtures necessary to do a particular class of work, such 
as locomotive building, or steam-engine building of various 
sizes, or printing-press machinery, or factory machinery, or 
tool-making, etc., etc., neither of which would have every 
variety of tool or fixtures in any one shop for doing every 
kind of machine w^ork. But when we fit up a machine-shop 
for the express purpose of teaching that trade or art, it 
should contain, not only planers, lathes, upright drills, gear- 
cutting machines, etc., for doing work generally, but should 
contain every tool and appliance of every name and nature 
that is ever used in any shop whatever, so that the student 
would become acquainted with every manner of doing work 
and the management of every kind of tool or device ever used 



ill any place or business for doing work. Also there should 
be a very particular selection of the kinds of Avork to be 
made at the school-shops, consisting of lathes and planers 
and other tools that are always kept on sale, large and small 
work of different kinds, making as great variety of work as 
possible for the pupil to practise upon in building, so that he 
would get a thorough knowledge of all and every part of the 
machine business ; and each pupil would be taught to make 
the whole, and put together every machine that was being 
constructed. 

The School-Shop Tkaining. 

In the school-shop the pupil would advance from a lower 
degree of instruction to a higher as rapidly as his thorough 
knowledge and good workmanship would justify. The 
instructor would be paid a satisfactory salary, and not be 
permitted to make merchandise of the time of the student. 
All machinery, or articles made by the students, could be 
put on sale, or be sold at auction, and the proceeds appro- 
priated towards defraying the expenses of the " school- 
shops." 

The great and rapid change in the division of labor 
and the introduction of machinery, and the great variety of 
appliances for doing all kinds of business, show plainly the 
importance of changing the system of instruction at the 
present time. We think it will be admitted that it will be 
of incalculable advantage to the youth, and would prove in 
the end to be very economical for the whole community. 

An Age of Specialists. 

Formerly a carpenter was taught to build a whole house : 
he used to jack down his floor-boards, make sashes, blinds, 
doors, stick out his mouldings, build his stairs, split out the 
laths, etc. 

Now this work is divided into specialties. We have 
planing-mills, where boards are planed by the wonderful 



" phming-machinc " to an equal thickness ; tongued, grooved 
and jointi'd if desired ; also, machines run by steam for 
sticking out mouldings of every size and description. 
There are special establishments for making blinds, sashes, 
and doors of every description and variety, by machinery 
invented and adapted to that special purpose. Stair-building, 
formerly a part of the carpenter's trade, is now a specialty 
or business by itself. Great changes have' taken place in 
the machine business, caused by the subdivision of labor 
and the introduction of various machines and appliances to 
perform the labor formerly done by hand. Instead of chip- 
ping and filing to make a straight edge or level surface, the 
material is now placed upon the planer for planing iron, where 
the edge is made perfectly straight, or the surface perfectly 
level, in one-tenth the time formerly required before the 
introduction of the planing-machine. This is true of other 
varieties of work, by means of upright drills, jig-saws, 
screw-cutting apparatus, polishing and emery wheels, uni- 
versal chucks and other appliances to the lathe, together 
with other apparatus which facilitates the manufacture of 
the various parts of the work. It is well known there is no 
place at the present, nor has there been for some time past, 
where a boy could "learn a trade." 

Adapting Education. 

We boast of our liberal institutions, and our admirable 
form of government ; nay, more, of our intelligence. It is 
admitted that we have done much for the cause of learning ; 
but who cannot perceive how much remains to be done 
before we can justly lay claim to that noble, refined and 
practical excellence which ought to adorn a great, a pros- 
perous and free people? We must strike out new paths. 
We must advance with the world. How many men know 
anything at all of the materials with which they work ? 

We are pleased to learn that we have the hearty approval 
and co-operation of Mr. John D. Philbrick, the experienced 



8 

Superintendent of the Public Schools of Boston, in relation 
to the above-proposed plan. 

In order to prevent misapprehension by those who have 
desired information in relation to the many articles published 
upon this subject in our public papers during the past 3'ear, 
we would wish to be distinctly understood that it is the object 
of the above plan to give to all the youth leaving our public 
or private schcfols the opportunity of obtaining a perfect 
knowledge of his chosen trade or occupation in the shortest 
possible time. Every boy, rich or poor, is, we think, as 
much entitled to be taught a good ti-ade as to have an edu- 
cation in our public schools. We also believe the proposed 
plan would be self-supporting in a short time after being once 
put in successful operation. 

To recapitulate : — 

First. There would be great advantage gained by select- 
ing the right youth (by the Developing School) for the 
right business. 

Second. The boys would be taught the trade, instead of 
getting their knowledge by observation, as was the case by 
the former plan ; and not be kept on work which would be 
most profitable for the master, as it would be his whole 
object to teach the boys, instead of making profit on their 
work. 

Third. The school-shop would be much more perfectly 
fitted up (as described) to teach the business than any shop 
to do work for profit, as all shops heretofore have only been 
fitted with such tools and appliances as were necessary tq do 
their particular class of work. 

Fourth. The kind of work selected to be made by the 
boys would be both large and small, embracing as great a 
variety as possible, in order to give them a perfect knowl- 
edge of every branch of the business. 

Fifth. There would be good moral discipline in the school- 
shop, the boys not being mixed up with journeymen and all 
classes usually found in all shops as generally established. 



Sixth. There would be no more expense to the boy while 
learning the trade and making him a producer, than there 
was while getting his public-school education. 

Seventh. The worth of the work made by the boys would 
probably pay current expenses after a very short time. 

MR. PHILLIPS' REMAEKS. 

Wendell Phillips was called on to give his opinion. He 
said : One of the great problems which confronts republican 
statesmanship is how to manage the population of cities. 
The tendency of our time is to gather men into cities. 
These treble and quadruple while the country only doubles. 
In every large town and great city is always present a vicious 
class, a burden and check on the welfare of the community, 
ready at any moment to become dangerous. The education 
and moral training of these is of the first importance. Lack- 
ing this, republican institutions are sure to be a failure. 
Every city has two kinds of education for this class : one 
is the schools ; the other is the tolerated temptations and 
houses of vice. These educate men just as much as other 
schools do. Their results are more immediately visible and 
more easily measured tlian those of the book-schools are. 
While there lies on our Chief of Police's table a perfect list 
of every house in the city devoted to vicious indulgence, 
and such houses are not closed, they must be considered 
a tolerated and recoo:nized means of trainino^ the masses. 

Now, idleness is one of the first temptations to vice. 
Children should be taught how to work, and, if possible, 
trained to love work. Again, one of the first safeguards 
against dishonesty is, to know how to make an honest living. 

Seven out of ten who come out of our public schools will 
prefer a trade or be obliged to make their living by the work 
of their hands. My experience is that hundreds leave school 
at fifteen years of age, wholly unable to do anything for which 
any man would be willing or could afibrd to give them a 
dollar. 



10 

Here is the ready and fruitful source of vice and danger 
in large towns and cities. 

In my judgment, we have no right to take a man's 
child from him and keep him until he is fifteen, or to induce 
a man to trust his child with us until he is fifteen, and 
then hand him back unable and unfit to earn his bread. 
We have done the boy and the city a harm rather than a good. 
Education means fitting a man for Ids life. We have rather 
unfitted than fitted such a boy for the life of labor which is 
to be 7^^slife. 

Of course I do not object to any liberal knowledge we 
give him. Neither do I now and here intend to notice or 
criticise the perfection or imperfection with which this is 
done. On that I have my opinions, and I do not consider 
our success in that line anything to be proud of. But I 
maintain that as respects that large class of young men and 
women who are to earn their bread by the labor of their 
hands, our system is not as good as that which prevailed a 
century ago, and still prevails in our small towns. The boy 
went to school six months, and helped his father on the farm 
or in his trade the other six. At sixteen or eigliteen such a 
boy came into life able to maintain himself, to stand on his 
own feet, a help, not a burden or danger to the community ; 
his life a career, not a lottery ; the city an opening and oppor- 
tunity to him, not merely a temptation. 

Men wonder sometimes at the extraordinary success of 
what we call self-educated men. Most of them had such a 
training as I have described, and if they had failed when 
competing with men merely book-trained, that would be more 
matter of their wonder than their success is. 

I do not ask to have this old system back again ; but it 
gives us a good hint how to amend ours. 

The boy who is going to college has two or three more 
years of education given him to fit him for his future. 
Why should not the city extend to the children who prefer 
some mechanical trade equal favors, parallel advantages? 
the same amount of training for their future that the college 



11 

boy has for his ? The discrimination against those who pre- 
fer to work with their hands is very unjust. 

Our S3"stem of education helps the literary class to an 
unfair extent when compared with what it affords to those 
who choose some mechanical pursuit. Our system stops 
too short; and as a justice to boys and girls, as well as to 
society, it should see to it, that those whose life is to be one 
of manual labor should be better trained for it ; the system 
Mr. Euggles proposes seems to me admirably adapted to 
this end. Its main features must be added to our Public 
School System, which daily becomes more unequal to the 
task it assumes. 

The Developing School is an entirely new suggestion, and 
an instrument and help to education of great value. 

We put a child into a hall or school, where he sees every 
variety of mechanical work going on. He tries his hand at 
any he fancies. Soon his natural bent or taste shows itself. 
His peculiar genius chooses and clings to some one kind of 
work. He has found his calling — the square peg, as the 
phrase is, has found the square hole — and is not obliged 
to stagger and stumble through life a square peg in a round 
hole. This natural bent once found out, we hand the child 
over to that school-shop, which teaches his particular trade, 
and thus fit him for his life. 

In this school he should be broadly trained in all that 
pertains to his chosen calling ; not be crippled by being con- 
fined to some one small item, or portion of it. He should 
not be crippled by being set — as we used to say ^vhen pins 
were made by hand — to make a pin's head or point all his 
life. If one portion of his chosen trade fails him, he should 
have some insight into all its particulars, and be thus able in 
almost any event or emergency to stand on his feet an inde- 
pendent man. Never let us lose the well-known charac- 
teristic of the Yankee race, that no shock can ever shake 
one off his feet, and no fate place him where he would not be 
worth his keep. 



12 



MR. HALE'S REMARKS. 

Mr. Hale followed Mr. Phillips. He called attention to 
the loss which the community sustains by placing boys in 
occupations for which they are not fitted by their native 
abilities. He spoke also of the difficulty of educating boys 
in accordance with their native ability, even when that 
ability has been ascertained. He took, as an illustration, 
the difficulty, amounting almost to impossibilit}^, of training 
a Boston boy to a sailor's life. He asked the audience if 
anybody remembered an instance within the last ten years 
v^hen a Boston boy had been trained to a life at sea. Yet 
there is no question but that there is a passion for the sea in 
our blood. We are the descendants of the Yikings ; and 
some of the greatest achievements of our race have been its 
victories on the ocean. That is only one instance, among 
man}^, of the way in which we are neglecting the native 
ability of our own children, in our drift or habit of turning 
all our boys into tradesmen. 

Now, the great duty of the State is to make the most out 
of every child born in the State. These children are born 
with great diversity of ability, and they must be trained to 
every variety of calling, if the State be wise. If Jenny 
Lind be born here, she must be trained to music ; if John 
Milton be born here, he must be trained to letters ; and none 
of the follies of Adam Smith, or of the other economists, 
must condemn them to heading pins or spinning cotton. 
But, as we live, we are fast losing the opportunities for this 
variety of training. We begin bravely on the broad system 
of the public schools. But it must be remembered that it 
is said that the average Boston boy leaves school forever 
before he is twelve years old. What is it, then, for which 
you have trained him ? Anybody who knows the real open- 
ings for those boys will tell you that it seems as if they 
were fit for nothing but to be news-boys or cash-boys in the 
great retail shops, or sellers of lozenges at the door of the 
Museum. , ', 



13 

Now, these are not good preparations for life. Nobody 
ever saw a i>rown-up cash-boy, or a grown-up lozengc-boy. 
My friends, the manufacturers, say that they are ghid to 
have a few of these boys in their mills ; but I have to say to 
them that ten hours a day at the loom or the spinning-frame 
is not a good education for manhood or womanhood. And 
I have to remind them that the prime business of a Christian 
State is not to make cottons, but to make men and womeu. 

Now, the report has told you Avhat are the causes for the 
difficulty in training boys to the use of their hands and heads 
together. We want the trained mechanic as much as w^e 
ever did. But our system, alas, no longer permits the 
trained man in his workshop to give a personal training to 
the boy who is to learn. Our system even keeps boys out 
of the sight of workmen, so that they really tell a story of 
a boy of sixteen, who had never seen any mechanic at his 
work, except a plumber, — and that boy chose a plumber's 
trade because he did not know what else to choose ! What 
follows all this difficulty in teaching boys to use the powers 
God has given them ? AVhy, there grows up a race of inef- 
ficient men, who have not learned to do anything at all. 
They are left in the grade of mere brute labor, because they 
have learned no art or handicraft in their boyhood. 

Mr. Hale continued : — \ 

Here is the point of view from which I look upon this 
subject : For more than twenty years now, it has been my 
duty to study all the questions of city poverty, of pauperism, 
and of other misery ; and I tell you v/hat any working min- 
ister will tell you, that, after intemperance, the worst evil 
you have is your body of untrained laborers, and that your 
present social status makes no provision for the training of 
labor. It is to supply this central need that Mr. Ruggles 
propose! his plan of the Developing School, and the schools 
connected with it. 

/" I am perfectly willing to admit that the best plan was the 
old New England plan. The fathers builded better than 
they knew when they sent a boy to school for three months y 



14 

and then kept him at work for three months at the bench, in 
the fishing-boat, or on the farm. But we think we hiive out- 
grown that system. We compel the school-boy, w^hile he is 
a school-boy, to keep at school all the time. We teach him 
to calculate how many bushels of oats can be exchanged 
against how many bushels of wheat, when oats are so much 
and wheat is so much, — and he does not, for all our teach- 
ings, know a kernel of oats nor a kernel of wheat when he 
sees them. Then, finding our boys good for nothing, we 
turn round and beg the schools to undertake their training. 
Just as Tv^e have made the schools teach a little music, and a 
little drawing, and a little sewing, we ask them to be good 
enough to .teach a little filing, and a little planing, and a little 
sawing. But all this is merely overburdening the school 
system, which is overburdened already; and it does not pro- 
vide for the separate training of each boy, according to his 
own personal ability. 

What Mr. Ruggles's plan suggests is a school to w^hich the 
boy shall come when he is of proper age to learn his trade, — 
Avhere he shall first be tried, by an intelligent master, on 
difl'erent lines of work. The report which has been read 
explains to you the detail. In a few months, or perhaps 
weeks, w^e shall know whether this boy will be a good ma- 
chinist, or a good founder, or a good carpenter, or good 
watchmaker. We shall know his physical aptitudes, his 
moral aptitudes ; we shall know what line of work he can 
follow well. Then we shall be prepared to take him into the 
separate school, where that aptitude can be best developed. 

I am told by skilful men, and I believe, that under two 
years of such careful training, for the new purpose of train- 
ing, an intelligent boy will learn more than he would learn 
in seven years of the old apprenticeship, knocked about here 
and there, left to run errands or to take the rough ^ork gen- 
erally, — perhaps making rivets for a year, if there were need 
of rivets, or punching-holes for a year, if there were need of 
holes. If that estimate be true, our plan proposes to save 



15 

five years of each young man's life, and to give it to him as 
his freedom present, even before he comes of age. 

We wish the State to add this developing system to its 
system of schools, because the State can do it better than 
any private corporation. The State has determined, wisely, 
that all the larger towns shall teach Latin and Greek in the 
public schools, shall prepare boys and girls for college. It 
has determined, wisely, that they shall teach drawing in 
those schools, resolving to develop the hardly budding 
genius of art in our manufactures. Let it determine, with 
the same wisdom, not to be dependent on the workshops of 
other lands for the skilled workmen whom it must have, if its 
great enterprises are to prosper. 

It is an interesting reflection that when Robert Stephenson 
had conceived, and, I may say, determined on, that great 
invention of the locomotive, w^hich has revolutionized the 
world, he knew so w^ell w^hat he needed, and the world 
needed, that he did not so much as attempt to build his 
model till he had first trained the machinists who w^ere to 
build it with him. The machine-shop in which the " Eocket " 
was built had been first the training-school of the machinists 
who built her ; and, when the great day of trial came, the 
result appeared. She did not break down on experiment in 
the competition with her rivals. They did. She did not 
need to be hauled off for repairs. What she was bidden to do 
she did. What he had prophesied, she performed. And the 
day that the great trial was over, modern society, had it only 
known it, was re-born ! In that new birth it was needed that 
Robert Stephenson should fitly train a school of machinists 
to their duty. 

I cannot but believe that so soon as the State throws the 
prestige of the public school system around its schools of 
industry, and opens them as freely as it opens its schools of 
Latin, of Greek, and of the higher mathematics, we shall see 
boys of enterprise and ingenuity and quickness of eye,* re- 
pair to them with as much eagerness as boys now repair to 



16 

West Point or to Annapolis, — with more eagerness than 
they show in going to Yale and Harvard. Tiie State will 
have provided what its system now lacks, and will meet the 
wants and aspirations, as it trains the inborn faculties, of 
every child of God born into its arms. 

ELIZUR WRIGHT'S REMARKS. 

Mr. President : The filing school, so thoroughly illus- 
trated, seems to be quite aside from the aim of the report 
before the Association, and rather in the line which we 
wish to avoid. The tendency ot the present system of 
manufactures is to turn the boy into a tool instead of a 
man, — a tool that must rust when out of employ, instead 
of a man who can get his living and more, everywhere. We * 
wish to educate the boy, not into a filing tool of the highest 
possible perfection, or drilling tool, or turning tool; but into 
a master of so large a variety of tools, that he can create all 
the parts of some complicated and useful mechanism, so as to 
work, and produce something. Boyhood is not long enough 
to acquire absolute perfection in perhaps any one of a score of 
common old-fashioned hand-tools, which, used with the 
highest possible skill, can produce surprising and beautiful 
results. 

The trouble is, if it were long enough, the beautiful result 
produced would not be the production of the twenty persons 
using the twenty tools, but of some superintending brain 
which used twenty human tools or twenty inanimate tools to 
produce it. Of all old-fashioned tools the file is perhaps the 
most painfully diflicult to use perfectly. It lies at the very 
foundation of the metallic arts, and, without very high skill 
in its .use, the present system of machinery could not have 
been born. But that once in existence, the importance and 
domain of the file, and the miraculously true filer, shrink 
alihost into insignificance. If people were hereafter to be 
born without legs, the accomplishment of standing on one's 
head and walking on his hands would assume great impor- 



17 

tance. So if planing and turning engines, including the turn- 
ing of irregular forms, were to be lost to mankind, the old 
marvellous skill in the use of the file might loom up 
again. 

What we want in the field of practical education is some 
substitute for the dead apprenticeship system. In the pres- 
ence of machinery in great establishments, the old trades 
which were handed down from father to son are either abol- 
ished or shrivelled to littleness. 

The Yankee boy, the most constructive "critter" naturally 
in the world, is pretty much shut out from the sight of all 
sorts of tools. And, knowing nothing of tools, the machines 
which are made to do the work of the tools are a sealed book 
and a mystery to him. If he goes to a machine shop, they 
will, perhaps, take him on the footing of a tool, and set him 
to doing over and over, forever and ever, one particular thing ; 
that is, if he does not disgust the superintendent by letting his 
machine do some mischief, which in his ignorance he is likely 
enough to do. He is a stranger in a strange city, in a per- 
fect Babel maze of buzzing and clanking, the meaning of 
which is all Greek to him. 

But suppose he had first been let into my friend Euggles's 
proposed school-shop, furnished with a considerable variety of 
tools and machines, and encouraged to try his ingenuity in using 
them to make something — to make the various parts and 
put them together. He does not become perfect with any 
tool, but he becomes familiar with a good many. He has done 
somethino: with them himself. He has throus^h them achieved 
a certain mastery over matter. Let him now go into a 
machine-shop, or great mechanical manufactory, and though 
he may be set, as in the other case, to do one thing over and 
over, he understands and sympathizes with all that is going 
on. He catches the spirit of the place, and feels himself in 
some degree master of the situation. Instead of gloomily 
sinking to a level with the tool he is set to use, he seeks to 
command its best services in the hope of commanding others 
by and by. 



18 

One of the wisest sayings of the learned Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, it seems to me, when his friend asked him how 
he should educate his son for a literary career, was " Turn 
him loose in a library." There is a pretty large class of 
Yankee boys that would be sure to educate themselves if 
turned loose in a well-furnished shop. The addition of 
capable and kind teachers would not render it less sure. 

MR. NEWELL'S EEMAEKS. 

The discussion of the report was continued on the fol- 
lowing evening, at the Institute of Technology, before the 
Society of Arts. It was participated in by Pres. Runkle, 
Prof. Whitaker, Prof. Watson, and others, including Mr. 
Newell, who expressed the thanks of Mr. Ruggles to the 
President of the society for his recognition of Mr. Ruggles's 
plan. Mr. Runkle had said that the plan in no manner con- 
flicted with the Russian system, which he had in part adopted 
at the Institute of Technology. President Runkle has said, 
'^ I don't care if the student never touches a tool after he 
leaves the school. The course is justifiable, simply on the 
ground of the discipline it gives." Mr. Ruggles's plan was 
for teaching trades, arts or callings to all the youth who may 
desire, and have a natural inclination therefor, in the shortest 
possible time, compatible with a perfect knowledge of his 
chosen art, trade or profession. Mr. Ruggles is confident 
that two years' steady application, under the supervision of a 
competent teacher, will be ample time to teach the boy, of 
average mechanical capacity, his trade perfectly. Mr. Newell 
had said apprenticeship had departed, never to return in its 
ancient form. Something else must take its place. Rude labor 
only requires the strength of a stupid plodder. Dexterous 
labor, at present, was mostly performed by the " rule of 
thumb," or in ignorance of underlying principles. Skilled 
labor requires both dexterity and thorough knowledge of 
miderlying principles. 



19 

It is well known that the workman who knows all the de- 
partments of his trade will always do better w^ork in any 
special department. It may, therefore, be justly said that 
each laborer should possess skill — the more the better. In 
the " Developing School and School-Shops " proposed by Mr. 
Ruggles, the teachers would be paid a liberal salary. Each 
student would be advanced in accordance with genius, 
industry and acquired skill in his trade, art or occupation. 
The bright, ingenious, industrious pupils would not be re- 
quired to go the same pace as the stupid and lazy. Each 
w^ould have a chance to do his best to prepare himself for 
future usefulness in the shortest practicable time. 

Mr. Xewell said the School of Technology was a place for 
the training of philosophers, men of science, and men of 
leisure, who may not propose to learn any 2^<^^^^^^'^^cl^^ trade, 
art or occupation, but who desire to cultivate the sciences 
and the philosophies for the purposes of personal improve- 
ment, and hope to apply their knowledge to the advancement 
of human society. To the man of science, science is the end; 
and aim. 

He said that, to a great extent, teachers of pure science or 
knowledge are unfamiliar with its technical applications ; 
and mere technical men are incapable oi teaching the science 
they scarcely know themselves. 

It is hard to say which is the more to be dreaded, — 
superficial science, applied to practical use, or profound 
science, applied with ignorance of the true aims and condi- 
tions of its application. 

This discord of practice with science and art has been the 
great misfortune of our generation, and we must spare no 
pains to avert it from the next. 

The discussion was a very entertaining and instructive 
one, and aroused much interest on the part of the audience. 



20 



Changes, Educational, etc. — Machinery in England — 
Kind of Technic Education. 

That "the present" shows a continuation of the transition 
period in national life no one can doubt. We are having 
revolutions in science, in politics, in means of intercourse of 
nations by sea, in transport of goods and persons by land, 
and in the transmission of thought from place to place with 
such annihilation of time as to give the human being almost 
the advantage of omnipresence. How all these changes have 
altered the relations of men, communities, nations, to one 
another, most of us have had ample opportunity to know. 
These revolutions have been brought about mainly by discov- 
eries in science of the laws and forces of material nature, and 
by inventions for rendering these forces the servants of man. 

By science the sphere of knowledge has been indefinitely 
measured ; by invention human power has been indefinitely 
extended. In our youth it sufficed to train a boy to his 
father's business, trade, skill or craft. For the present gen- 
eration that training not only is inadequate, but even worse 
than the want of it. The English people have lost some 
two generations in the race of national improyement in try- 
ing to hold fast to old obsolete systems of doing work, as 
may be readily seen, by the many acknowledgments fre- 
quently made similar to the following extract from the 
London " Times" : — 

" British Trade and American Competition. — Except 
in chains and traces, cheap guns, ammunition, tin plates, and 
a few other specialties, trade with the United States is almost 
at a standstill ; but merchants are compensating themselves 
for the flatness of the American market by pushing the sale 
of American-made goods in this country, where they meet 
with ready acceptance." 

Sheffield advices through the same source are : — 

'*' Great depression still hangs over the trade of this dis- 



21 



trict, and it is felt by many manufacturers that unless 
goods can be produced at a cheaper rate, the success of 
foreign competition will continue to be the rule. Acting 
upon this view of the case, some of our local firms h;ive been 
quietly developing machinery by which certain classes of 
goods formerly imported from America or the continent are 
now being produced at rates which, it is hoped, will keep 
foreign articles out." 

Also the following from the report at the annual meeting 
of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce : — 

" At the annual meeting of the Sheffield Chamber of Com- 
merce, yesterday, the President said the manufacturers and 
workmen had only themselves to blame for loss of the Ameri- 
can trade. American competition w^as successful, owing to 
the general adaptation of labor-saving machinery." 

It will be readily perceived that there is a vast difference 
in the method of manufacturing in this country and in Eng- 
land. By our ingenious adaptation of machinery, and the 
•many kinds of appliances to various processes of manufactur- 
inof in the different trades, arts and callinsfs, w^e have taken 
from other countries much of the work formerly done by 
them. By the above extracts it will be perceived that they 
have been compelled to adopt, in some measure, the Ameri- 
can method of doing work by machinery. 

More than three-quarters of the former Geneva w^atch- 
business is now done in this country, and unless they bestir 
themselves by the application of machinery, and the different 
appliances to do such work, we soon may expect the whole. 
The great question comes home to everj^ one of us, How shall 
we train the children who are to succeed us in this world, 
changed by science and invention, for the wide field of action 
that lies before them ? Shall we go back to the old apprentice 
system and the former manner of doing work, and, by long 
practice, teach the youth to stick out his mouldings, make 



22 

sashes, blinds, cloors, and plane all his boards hy Jiand, when 
we have machinery to do all this work in one-tenth part of the 
time, and a great deal better? Why should we require the 
pupil machinist, by long practice, td file perfectly level sur- 
faces, and straight edges and other similar work by hand, 
when we have the wonderful planing-machines, slabbing, 
shaping and slotting machines, etc., of various kinds, de- 
signed and admirably constructed to perform all that work in 
one-tenth part of the time, and much naore perfectly? As 
we have such tools and appliances to take the place of the 
file, there is, consequently, not one-tenth of the work to be 
done now by the file as formerly. 

What is necessary, and what must be done, is to teach 
every pupil every part of the whole trade, with a perfect 
knowledge of the use of every machine and appliance for 
doing work in his chosen trade or art, giving to him vastly 
superior knowledge over the old apprentice system, even 
were that obsolete way of doing work in existence. It 
is unnecessary for the youth to practise a long time to do 
good work wholly by hand, as formerly, costing ten times 
as much, in time and material ; but we desire him to have a 
thorough knowledge of his business, and to become, as it 
were, master of the situation, and to be acquainted perfectly 
with the use of every tool, device, or convenience for doing 
such work in the cheapest as well as the best manner. 

In the Developing School and School-Shop he will not be 
required to spend a moment of his time to profit any one, 
but devote the whole of his time for his own advantage. 
Should a skilled workman, in machine, cabinet, or most any 
mechanical business of forty years since, understanding per- 
fectly the way of doing every kind of work that was done 
at that time, with all the facilities and appliances of that 
period, have fallen asleep at that date until the present 
time, then have "^aked up "with all his former shill un- 
impaired, he would not be able to earn his " salt " (as we 
say) at his old business, as designed and done at the pres- 
ent day, with the improved machinery and appliances for 



23 

doing it. But let bygones be bygones. Let ns put techni- 
cal education Avithiii the reach of all our youth, as free as 
has been his common-school education. The aims and meth- 
ods of the future will have to be created in harmony with 
the gradual advance of science and invention. 



[From the "Boston Commercial Bulletin," Feb. 3, 1877.] 
MR. RUGGLES'S PLAN FOR MANUAL EDUCATION. 

The public interest In this subject is not an ephemeral thing. 
There has been a growing feeling in the public mind that some 
new departure must be taken in our educational S3'stem, to adapt 
it to the new wants created by the social and other changes of the 
past twenty years. There is not an intelligent man or woman 
who does not see that the existing S3'6tem, excellent as it is for 
certain purposes, does not supply- the 3-outh of our cities with the 
education which will prepare them to earn a living. 

But while this has been seen, the possibility of a change has 
hardl}' been considered except by a few. It has been taken for 
granted that the existing sj'stem had become so firmlj^ established 
that no innovation would be tolerated. The discussion of the 
subject has, however, inspired hopes that some experiments will 
eventually'' be made, with a view of ascertaining what changes 
are most likely to remedy the confessed defects of the present 
methods. 

Of the plans proposed, none have attracted more attention than 
those presented on the fourth page of the ' ' Bulletin " to-day. 
We do no injustice to the committee, whose report we publish in 
full, when we give the credit of the plan to Mr. S. P. Ruggles, of 
this city, the chairman of this committee. Mr. Ruggles is well 
known as a successful inventor, and especially as a thoroughly 
practical mechanic, familiar with ever}'' description of mechanical 
labor and appliances. His long experience gives special value to 
his opinions as to the possible changes which can be made in our 
educational system. 

The feature of his plan which impresses us most favorably is 
that in relation to the " Developing School," the purpose of which 
is to ascertain the natural tastes and preferences of the boys as to 



24 

the various mechanical avocations. The most difficult problem 
which presents itself in deciding in regard to a boj^'s future is, 
" What is he best fitted for?" It could almost be said truthfully 
that nine-tenths of the failures in life come from neglecting to 
decide this question intelligently. A single instance will illustrate 
our meaning. Mr. Rogers, whose fame as a modeller of statuary 
has become a household word in America, began life as a sur- 
veyor ; but finding the business uncongenial, and the sunlight 
injurious to his ej^es, he abandoned it and engaged in mechanical 
pursuits in connection with locomotive building. After following 
this for a while, he discovered his hidden taste for modelling, and 
leaving the machine-shop began, in a very small and unpromising 
wa}', the production of his "groups," earning at first hardly 
enough to support life, and being compelled to live in the most 
economical manner. But his success was assured, from the outset, 
b}' the fact that he had at last found an avocation for which he 
was perfectly adapted, and it was the work of but a few years to 
establish fame, competence and a permanent business. His his- 
tory is that of thousands who, after blundering for years, and los- 
ing the best part of their early manhood, have at last found their 
place in the world. Of more it is true that, having once mistaken 
their calling, they have never rallied from the disappointments 
which attended the inevitable early failures, but have j'ielded up 
all ambition, and become almost useless members of society. 

The "Developing School" proposed by Mr. Ruggles would 
aim, b}^ placing a bo}^ in contact with the tools and work of dif- 
ferent trades, to assist him in choosing properly and wisely at 
first. The plan is a novel one, but the object aimed at is so 
desirable that the experiment ought to be tried. The school-shop 
is supplementar}- to the developing school, and has for its purpose 
the instruction of students in mechanical arts. It diflfers from the 
school-shop of the Russian system, which we have described in 
previous issues of the " Bulletin," in this, that it unites mstruc- 
tion with coTistruction, producing articles for sale, as well as 
imparting useful skill. 



25 



[From the Boston " Post," Feb. 5, 1877.] 
MECHANICAL SCHOOLS. 

No better evidence could be sought in favor of tlie industrial 
schools, which it is seriously' proposed to make the educational 
supplement to our public school-system, than that which is so 
readil}' supplied b}' the approval of the communit}' itself. The 
impression would seem to be almost universal that this is the ver}' 
thing that is wanted. The hearings which are taking place at the 
State House on the establishment of these Art and Scientific 
Schools are but a corroboration of the opinions of Mr. Ruggles, 
of whose plans for providing a mechanical education for bo3's on 
leaving the public schools we have heretofore full}" apprised the 
readers of the " Post." At present, the movement is instigated 
by the National Board of Trade, in a somewhat enlarged form 
from the one suggested b}- Mr. Ruggles ; but the main purpose is 
the same as his, and an}" differences of detail cannot divide the 
interest that is visibl}^ felt in the general project. The opinion of 
Hon. Elizur Wright, that our common-school SA'stem is set up 
" wrong end foremost," because children should be taught the use 
of tools before thej- learn to read, write and spell, deserves con- 
sideration as coming from a man who knows experimentall}'' 
whereof he chooses to affirm, and feels a deep personal interest in 
the right advance of popular education. The Kindergarten idea is 
not so very far awaj" from his as to be denied relationship, and 
may in time operate to bring his into universal recognition. 

But until that question is put distinctly, as Mr. Wright now 
onl}" suggests it, there is no special call for its discussion. The 
thing at present proposed is to provide Mechanical Schools that 
will take boys who have graduated at our public schools and help 
them to discover the bent of their minds and the facility of their 
hands, and thereby qualify themselves to enter upon life armed 
with the practical means of conquering a livelihood ; instead of 
being left a burden for j^ears to their parents, listless seekers for 
vacant places in stores, or, at the worst, an idle class from which 
vice and crime are wont to recruit their strength through the 
always ready agencies of temptation. To this end the reported 
remarks of Mr. Candler, Dr. Bowditch, Mr. Atkinson and Mr. 
Newell are worthy of careful attention. The fresh and vigorous 
ideas of Mr. Ruggles, too, not long since spread before the public 



f 



26 

through these columns, are to be esteemed as the ones that pioneer 
this great educational improvement. If Boston were to inaugu- 
rate them in practice, as Mr. Ruggles showed she could do with 
great ease, and at trifling or no cost, she would do no more for 
the whole country in this regard than she has often done in many 
another. To have so far introduced the Greek method of educa- 
tion as to exchange music and the games for that mechanical skill 
which is the first demand of our modern material life will be 
entire!}" in harmony with the pretensions to Athenian thoroughness 
that are universally allowed to this communit3^ The Legislature 
will unquestionably have the whole matter before them at the right 
time in a form for action that may bear early fruit. 

[From the Boston «' Saturday Evening Express," Jan. 14, 1877.] 
. DEVELOPING SCHOOL, AND SCHOOL-SHOPS. 

The plan described in the paper read before the Social Science 
Convention, by John Newell, Esq., showing plainly the plan 
proposed by S. P. Ruggles, one of our oldest and most experi- 
enced practical mechanics, from its liberal provisions for all 
the youth when they leave our public schools, is worthy the 
attention of all the practical educators of the State and city. The 
boy, by this plan, selects his favorite occupation or trade, then is 
sent/ree to the " School-Shop," where he is taught thoroughly his 
trade or art in the shortest possible time ; two j^ears being con- 
sidered ample time to obtain a perfect knowledge of his chosen 
profession, and some who have large innate taste for the same 
trade in less time. No pupil will be detained any longer than is 
absolutely necessar}- ; the genius and diligent would not be held 
back to accommodate the dolt or the lazy. Our educators have 
done much that is commendable for general education, and ought, 
from their very position, to be able to see, know and readily 
understand what the public good demands. We have now in the 
State about 300,000 persons who have no practical knowledge in 
any trade, art, calling or profession bj' which to obtain a living, 
only being useful as a reserve from which a draft can be made for 
tramps, political bummers, thieves, jail-birds, candidates for all 
our penal institutions. Nine-tenths of all the criminals arraigned 
and corrected are persons who have no technical education. 

We have lost one generation ; let us redeem the time, and 



27 



provide for the 3'outh who are to succeed us, ample means for a 
good practical education. Let our School Committee, as soon as 
they can ascertain " who is great in the kingdom," the head or 
the feet of the image, spend a little of their valuable time by 
investigating and suggesting some plan for the technical education 
of the 58,000 children placed under their charge, so that whenever 
the}', or the grand attaches of supervisors launch them upon 
societ}', the}' may have some practical knowledge that will be an 
equivalent for dail}' bread. We need not go abroad for informa- 
tion as to how we shall live, or oppose those who do. Let it be 
our object to make good useful citizens, men and women, b}- giving 
them all an opportunity equall}' as free as the system of common 
schools, to secure a knowledge of some trade, art or calling in 
harmonv with nature and their own inclination. 



[From the Boston •' Post," Feb. 2, 1877, revised, with additions.] 
INVENTORS AND PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 

To the Editor of the Boston Post : — 

" Educate the people," was the first admonition addressed by 
Penn to the Commonwealth he founded. " Practically educate 
the people," was the last legacj' of Washington. "Give to the 
people a good practical education," was the unceasing exhortation 
of Jefferson. I quote his authorit}^ with peculiar favor ; for of all 
public men the world ever saw, he was the one whose greatest 
delight it was to pare down the functions of government to the 
lowest possible point, and leave the freest scope for the exercise 
of individual rights. 

The monarch ma}^ distinguish his rule by advancing his people 
in civilization. The warrior ma}'' strike off the bonds from the 
limbs of the slaves, or scatter in the fields of conquest the seeds 
of literature and art ; but the man who gives to the world a new 
power and teaches them how to use it has a royalt}' of his own. 
Newton, b}^ developing the laws of gravitation, gave us a balance 
in which to weigh the planets of our own sj'stem, and the sun 
around which they revolve. Franklin, with his kite, stole the fire 
from heaven, subdued the spirit of the storm, and taught mankind 
to protect themselves from the torrents of his wrath. Franklin's 
kite-thread, along which the lightning travelled, was the line from 



28 

which was derived the electrical wire which now conve3'S men's 
thoughts and wishes over land and under the ocean. 

Whatever diminishes the risk of life or health, in any mechani- 
cal operation, or any exertion of bodily labor, lessens the cost of 
production by diminishing the premium which is charged to cover 
the risk. Great changes have been effected within the last one 
hundred years by the skill and ingenuity of our American inventors : 
by Franklin ; Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton-gin, one machine 
doing the work of 5,000 field-hands ; Kobert Fulton, of steamboat 
and war-vessel celebrit}" ; Cjtus McCormick, inventor of harvest- 
ing-machines ; one acre of heavy grass was a good da3^'s work for a 
man in mowing, while a boy, with a horse and his mowing- 
machine, cuts easily ten acres ; Good3'ear, with his practical 
rubber improvements ; Samuel F. B. Morse, of Massachusetts, 
inventor of the electric telegraph, who, after suffering much 
tribulation and contests, was sustained by the courts, and 
realized a fortune from his valuable patents ; Ross Winans, a 
native of New Jersej^, the author of many inventions relating to 
railwa3^s, whose genius assisted the Russian Government in 
developing her principal railways. 

We would like here to be permitted to speak of our fellow- 
citizen, S. P. Ruggles, who, from his earh'' youth has been dis- 
tinguished for his wonderful inventive talent. In 1832 Mr. 
Ruggles, when quite a .young man, was an assistant at the Perkins 
'' Institution for the Blind," in Boston, it being the first institution 
of the kind ever established in this country, and he has conferred 
more lasting and real benefit on the blind than any man in this or 
any other country. * 

He first invented a way of making a highly superior tj'pe for the 
printing in raised letters. There was then no paper in existence 
capable of receiving an impression from his new type. Mr. Rug- 
gles invented a new kind of paper, by means of various kinds of 
sizing, so that it would retain the embossed impression ; and after 
man}^ trials and experiments with the strongest iron printing- 
presses in use, and after breaking two of them, he was obliged to 
invent and build a most powerful press of an entirely new con- 
struction. Each impression of that press gave a pressure of three 
hundred tons, and was worked by the blind pupils, and threw off 
twent}^ sheets per minute. 

Mr. Ruggles next invented an entirely new method of making 



29 

maps for the blind, which proved eminently successful. His plan 
was a raised character, similar to his type, but arranged with such 
combinations that, at a most trifling expense, he could produce a 
succession of maps of any size and of an}' country. INIaps made 
in this manner were never before known, and the Perkins Institu- 
tion in Boston immediatel}' issued from this very ingenious plan 
an Atlas of the United States, and also a General Atlas. The 
origin alit}' and simplicity of this invention excited the admiration 
of ever}' one. It would, by most persons, be thought impossible, 
that separate t^'pe or characters could be so contrived as to admit 
of their being arranged in such a manner as to produce a map of 
an}' country, and then to use the same type to produce a map of 
any other country or place. Yet, difficult as this may appear, it 
was most perfectly accomplished by this new invention, every 
piece of type matching its neighbor with miraculous cunning, 
while following the crooked lines and angles or graceful curves of 
the various rivers, coasts, islands, lakes, bays, etc., with which 
such works abound. 

By this invention, so decidedly superior to every other before 
known for conveying to them an idea of geography, the blind 
were introduced to a new world of thought, of study, and of 
reflection. 

By the old method a map for the blind was produced by build- 
ing up by hand, on a board, the objects to be represented. A 
small map by the old method would cost six or seven dollars, and 
would not contain one half as much information as one on the plan 
invented by Mr. Ruggles, and which would not cost as many 
cents I 

He also produced the plates for a new Geometry, in raised char- 
acters ; next a globe for the blind, in raised characters, some 
thirteen feet in circumference. In 1838 Mr. Ruggles went to Phil- 
adelphia and established one of his powerful presses for printing for 
the blind, in the institution in that city. The highest encomiums 
have been lavished upon his inventions in this country and in 
Europe. All the improvements made at the Perkins Institution 
for the education of the blind in printing and school apparatus 
were made by Mr. Ruggles, and by him alone ; and after spending 
some seven or eight years at the institution for the blind, getting 
up printing and all school apparatus for their use, which required 
a perfect knowledge of a great variety of trades and mechanical 



30 

business, he left the institution and turned his attention to the 
invention and construction of job and card power presses for let- 
ter-press printing, being the first power presses ever made for that 
purpose, by which one boy was able to turn the press by a treadle 
witli his foot and print more sheets per minute or hour than seven 
men and seven boys could do on the best presses then in use before 
that time for such purposes. By the manufacture and sale of these 
presses he made a large fortune. He has taken out some twentj'- 
five patents, most of them being on entirel}" different machines or 
new subjects, a description and value of which it is not our pur- 
pose, at this time, to describe, but merely wish to show how earl}' 
his innate genius, invention and skill in the many kinds ^f 
mechanical business commenced. 

He retired from active business life some twenty years since, 
with an ample fortune. During his retirement he has been con- 
stantly busy with experiments, and carefully investigating man}' 
subjects, which his ample means and leisure have enabled him to 
do with great care and success. Several of his machines are in 
use in the United States, France, England and Russia, in their 
public workshops and private establishments. He has been an 
inventor from his early youth ; and is now practically master of 
most every trade, art or calling, as the works of his own hands 
will demonstrate. 

Mr. Ruggles is now endeavoring to convince our public edu- 
cators of the importance of technical instruction for all the 3'outh 
when they leave our public and private schools, as free to each 
pupil as was his teaching in the common school. He is also will- 
ing to assist in the establishment of these schools with his long 
experience and with his means, though he does not design or wish 
to hire the public to accept a plan fraught with interest to every 
3'Outh in our land. His plan is purel}^ American, and has met 
with the general approval of the press and our best 6'ducators. 
With a quick perception and ever-ready invention, for which from 
bo3'hood he has been remarkable, and a most wonderful faculty of 
adapting means to ends, he is in our opinion the right man to 
suggest to the public the best and most economical manner of 
introducing a sj'stem of practical education. 

Boston, February 1. 



